10 Jan Austin Green 2012 Year in Review

Let's start with some really good news, five Austin EcoNetwork's partner businesses won honors in the Austin Chronicle's 2012 Best of Austin awards. Those include EcoClean, Greenling, Edible Austin, East Side Compost Peddalers, in.gredients. We are so proud to be associated with these fine businesses and encourage you to support them when you need your clothes cleaned, good food delivered, excellend foodie information, your compost picked up (only if you leve in East Austin) or some groceries without all the crazy packaging.(Oh and I was, I'm sure because of you reading this, was voted Best Environmentalist for the fourth time. Thank you.)

Energetically, 2012 seemed to be a challenging year for many. Perhaps the drought and heat that parched our landscape left nerves a little raw too. The drama surrounding the potential end of the world last on December 21st wasn’t exactly an uplifting context for a year either.  I thank those who consciously used the prospective Apocalypse as an occasion to discuss what kind of new world we want to create, because the one we've been creating, with every natural ecosystem in decline, could be argued to be on a course for self-destruction.

The year started with a sober look at statewide and regional tree damage – over the prior year Texas sustained an estimated $93 Billion in tree loss due to drought and large parts of Bastrop County were burned to the ground in wildfires. On the bright side, American Youthworks crews and TreeFolks staff and volunteers pitched in to restore and replant in Bastrop State Park. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center helped with space and volunteer sapling care to grow the trees that TreeFolks distributed to Bastrop volunteers for planting this fall, and will continue to provide space for similar environmental restoration projects. Local green building practitioners from Design~Build~Live, the Austin Permaculture Guild, and others, made efforts toward helping get Bastrop area folks re-building in a greener way.

The Spring election, particularly the mayoral race felt like it left our eco community divided and less communicative. It pretty much put an end to the Mayor's bi-monthly Environmental Working Group Meetings. I have hope that recent communications between Brigid Shea and Lee Leffingwell could open to the door to a more conversational future.

A few people have contacted me with their highlights of the year – one was the passage of the 10-1 geographic distribution plan. After many defeats and after a citywide petition drive, Austin voters sent a resounding message in the November that they want to elect their City Council from districts drawn by citizen volunteers. Starting in 2014, only the Mayor will run citywide and 10 city councilmembers will be elected by their neighbors in November of even-numbered years for 4-year terms. This is expected to dramatically increase the turnout for City Council and mayoral elections. These changes will potentially make it easier for candidates from neighborhoods to win seats on the City Council without having to raise the large amount of money needed to run TV commercials for a city-wide campaign as in the past.

We passed lots of bonds that included things like alternative transportation and parks and open space funding. The only bond that didn’t pass was the terribly-worded proposition 15, which would have supported affordable housing.

I have definitely been feeling like we need to boost the civic energy and personal action. We need to be less casual and more demanding of ourselves, others and our leadership to bring forth the actions that can create an environmentally safe, climate-stable, zero waste, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just future that we want. As Annie Leonard said, "Bring the outrage!" Or as the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium urges us to “wake up” from the trance we've been living in; this mistaken illusion that more and bigger everything is better. The pursuit of this mass consumption life has not led to happier, more fulfilled people. Let’s play another game!

Ok, enough philosophy and on to the review of what happened last year.

COMMUNITY EVENTS
We are grateful to several local groups that continually help us maintain public conversations about what is important regarding Austin and the Environment including Texas Green Network, Austin Regional Group of the Sierra Club, Austin Interfaith Environmental Network, Liveable City .

Multiple green groups came together last year to produce key green events such as The Earth Day Festival, the televised Election 2012 Green Forum, and The 5th Annual Green Holiday Party. At the center of a lot of that action was Reed Sternberg and Texas Green Network. We hope for even greater collaboration amongst all groups in 2013, for event production and campaigns to get this city a vibrant shade of green.

Taking a quick scan of the 2012 EcoCalendar we pulled out these major (or otherwise interesting) Austin area events, many of which will happen again this year.

• WPO Stakeholder Meeting – Development Patterns & Greenways, Part II – Jan.6th
• Treefolks Plantings with City of Austin at Zilker and Barton Springs- Jan.14th
• Symphony Awakening – Concert, Green Festival and Benefit- Jan.15th
• Sustainable Construction, Integrity in Design – Jan. 19th
• Watershed Protection Ordinance Stakeholder Meeting Part 3- Jan. 23rd
• Community Conversation on the Austin Energy Rate Plan- Jan. 28th
• Children in Nature by Prof. Robin Moore of the Natural Learning Initiative- Feb.1st
• Joint Committee of the Environmental Board and Parks Board – Barton Springs Improvements- Feb. 6th
• Faith-based Gardening Symposium with Dick Pierce-  Feb.7th
• Treefolks Plantings with City of Austin at Redbud Isle and Mayfield Preserve- Feb. 11th
• Imagine Austin Community Forum, Liveable City- Feb. 27th
• OANA Shoal Creek Cleanup- Mar. 3rd
• 3rd Annual People's Party/Fiesta Popular- Mar. 17th
• Texas Green Network’s Austin March Event hosted by the City of Austin- Mar. 21st
• The Spring Alive Festival – Mar. 25th
• Texas Veg Fest – Mar. 31st
• Colorado River Foundation's Family Water Fest – Apr. 1st
• GoGreen '12 – Apr. 4th
• Funky Chicken Coop Tour – Apr. 7th
• Clean Sweep – Apr. 14th
• East Austin Urban Farm Tour – Apr. 15  
• Earth Week – A very successful Give 5% to mother earth campaign, various events at Universities, the solar and green candidate forums, and the green city mixer along with the Austin Earth Day Festival held for the first time at the historic Browning Hangar at Mueller.
• Earth Day Festival – Apr. 22nd
• Learning Man Festival – Apr. 26th – 28th
• Bike to Work week – May 14 – 18th
• Mother Earth Day at the Springs – May 18th
• National Trails Day – June 2nd
• 16th Annual Austin Cool House Tour – June 3
• Heart of Texas Green Expo (Bastrop) – June 8th and 9th
• Love ATX; Cleanse ATX; July 1st
• Urban Patchwork's 3rd Anniversary – July 2nd.
• Hack-A-Thon for the Coalition of Austin Community Gardens – July 14th
• Summer Nature Nights series at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
• Republic Square Master Plan Update and Phase II Design/Construction July 19th
• Celebrate Barton Springs with S.O.S Aug. 7th
• Kramer MetroBike Shelter Grand Opening- Aug. 24th
• The Great Texas Tree Roundup Workshop Aug. 25th
• Farm and Food Leadership Conference Sept. 10-11th
• Texas Campaign for the Environment's 21st Anniversary Celebration: Recycled Fashion Show, Silent Auction, & Dance Party! – Sept. 15th
• UT Austin's 3rd Annual Sustainability Symposium- Sept.21st
• 12th Annual Renewable Energy Roundup & Green Living Fair Sept 29th
• SXSW Eco 2012- Oct 3-5th
• Jim Marston: Why dealing with Climate Change is Good for the Texas Economy- Oct.14th
• Celebrate Forty Years of Action for Clean Water- Oct. 18th
• VeloTexas 2012-  Oct. 19th
• 14th Annual Eat Locally Cook Globally Fall Festival benefiting Green Corn Project- Oct 28th.
• Michael Pollen at the Paramount  Nov.1st
• The First Annual Texas Aquaponic and TransFarming Tour- Nov. 3rd
• AEGB Seminar: 2012 International Energy Conservation Code- Nov.9th
• Texas Green Network Conversation and Post-Election Wrap-up- Nov .15
• An Evening with Raj Patel Dec. 2nd
• Clean Lady Bird Lake Dec. 8th
• Comparative Energy Conference: Policies and Technologies in France and the USA Dec. 17th

Many more on the Austin EcoCalendar.

Monthly Chicas Verdes happen every first Tuesday of the month and continue to be the best luncheon for green women leaders to connect and get inspired.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, and moving pictures are worth more, then a LOT of compelling ideas were conveyed last year at these Film Screenings and Presentations. Look any of them up for more info.

• Monumental: Fight for Wild America – screened by Sierra Club
• The Ice and the Sea – screened by Sierra Club
• Story of Change – hosted by Texas Campaign for the Environment
• FUEL – at the Paramount
• NOW, FORAGER
• Last Call at the Oasis – at the Paramount
• Gasland documentary – at St Edward's
• Fixing the Future – at AMC theaters, locally hosted by Cooperation Texas
• Films for the Forest (annual film series event hosted by Rainforest Partnership)
• Farmageddon: The Unseen War on the American Family Farm
• Hot Science Cool Talks – at UT
• The interactive "Living Springs" Documentary is still a work in progress, and funds were raised this past year. http://livingspringsaustin.org/

The Paramount Theater stepped up to be one of Austin's new venues to host films, performances, and discussions to get people thinking about sustainability. In addition to the above screenings they hosted noted authors Michael Pollan and Raj Patel for thought-provoking, audience-engaging talks. They even let Austin EcoNetwork table at their green events to sign up more folks interested in getting the Austin EcoNews.

DESIGN

Design~Build~Live held many successful monthly meetings and workshops on sustainable building and living techniques. The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS) continued their ecoBalance presentation series in 2012. A Sustainable Land Use Planning and Design Methodology that has been in the works probably for most of Pliny’s life, ecoBalance has become a context in which to explore the cycles of life through presentations and discussion.

Austin Permaculture Guild continued to make progress in its mission of boosting permaculture consciousness in central Texas and beyond. The “Austinperm Yahoo group” and the new Austin Permaculture Guild Facebook page attracted a steady increase in membership not only from around central Texas, but from other states and even from other countries. They filled their popular "10 Saturdays" classes to capacity as usual, and turned out about 50 new graduates. In 2012, more than ever, Permaculture Design Certificate graduates were a strong force for good in the community — teaching courses, planting educational gardens, creating jobs, leading volunteer projects, starting businesses, building deep-green houses, turning waste into a resource, creating intentional communities. People now have the option of earning their Permaculture Design Certificate at Austin Community College. The course is taught by one of the APG graduates, Caroline Riley of OneWorld Permaculture.

Biomimicry 3.8 expanded with a regional Texas Chapter based out of Austin, which aims to influence human systems with nature based design principles, through mimicking nature.

ENERGY

The solar energy industry continued to expand its reach in Central Texas. Austin Energy introduced a new solar power metering system for residential installations which more fairly reward solar system operators for the energy they produce by taking into account solar power's ability to reduce 'peak load' on the grid (among other benefits). The net effect of this award-winning program is an increase in the incentive to install local distributed energy production within Austin Energy's service area. The installed market price of solar power continued to plunge during 2012, which further stimulated demand for solar. New installation companies set up shop in Austin. One of the fastest growing new solar companies in town is one of our newest partners, Revolve Solar.

When KEYE aired a report that local activist/writer/watchdog Paul Robbins was also quick to respond with a letter to set the record straight.

Texas Solar Energy Society Chapters in Houston, Dallas/Ft Worth, San Antonio and the Hill Country produced solar tours in October 2012 in conjunction with the National Solar Tour. TXSES presented two cash awards, through the Solar America Cities program, for excellent solar curriculum in schools served by Austin Energy:

• Dr. Gary Vleit for his solar car workshops for elementary school student.
• Jim Stricklan for his multi-year green construction program at Crockett High School.

Texas Campaign for the Environment is seeing some movement in their campaign against fracking in Dallas, as the Dallas City Plan Commission denied Dallas' first gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing requests. Houston passed Prop B which supports the Bayou Greenways Initiative, a proposal to add 2,000 acres of parks and 75 miles of additional trails along all the major bayous within in the city limits. Read more about them here.

Austin's Beyond Coal Campaign is gaining slow footing in its fight to shut down the Fayette Coal Plant, although the most recent statement from the City to sell its portion of the plant to someone else don't meet community activist's desires. Keeping the plant running would still devastate the land, water, and air in the surrounding communities.

Austin Energy increased their rates for the first time in 11 years, despite lots of opposition organizing from local faith and neighborhood groups prior to each hearing.

In December, Austin Energy hired Deborah L. Kimberly with the Salt River Project – the third largest public power electric utility in the country to be the new Vice President for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at Austin Energy.  She was hired to fill the VP spot formerly held by Karl Rabago. It was a tense transition – many feel Austin Energy lost its last strong leader for green causes, others were ready to deal with a different style manager. 

According to an article in Time Magazine, Austin was America's Clean Tech Hub in 2012.

YOUTH

EcoRise Youth Innovations has graduated 650+ green leaders in our first three years! They brought over 30 green professionals into the classroom and over 500 EcoRise supporters have collectively given more than 12,000 hours of volunteer labor! Their students designed and implemented over 30 campus-improvement projects including: Rainwater catchment systems; Outdoor classrooms using reclaimed materials; Composting & recycling systems; Organic garden beds; Native & xeric landscape projects, and up-cycled product design.97% of students have taken new actions to help protect the environment. 75% of students have adopted at least THREE new behaviors supporting sustainable living practices. 76% students feel significantly more empowered to lead change and make a difference in their school or community. 77% students report an increased awareness of green job opportunities.

CampFire USA Balcones Chapter won an Austin EcoNetwork partnership after being awarded with the Children In Nature award from Westcave Preserve for helping connect Central Texas boys, girls and their families to nature, received dual recognition from Greenlights for Nonprofit Success as well.

Growin' Together Hands-On Afterschool Program had an amazingly successful first semester. 14 students joined the program to develop skills in art, gardening, cooking, carpentry, team-building and collaboration. In their first four months we hosted 2 Eco-Art Fests, installed community built and kid maintained hugel kultur mounds, one wicking bed, one raised bed garden and community constructed chicken coop on the EcoSchool campus. They also hosted first annual Winter Show-Off featuring student presentations of their films, food, gardens, and carpentry projects. Their program's success this first semester is reflected in their parent survey given at the Winter Show-Off – 100% of parents surveyed agreed that GrowinTogether offers quality programming and would recommend Growin' Together to other families.

FOOD

There were a plethora of gardening workshops, volunteers days, and new gardening initiatives that came about last year. One of the most exciting is the community garden leadership training that happened through the Sustainable Food Center (SFC) to start more community gardens to meet the growing demand and limited membership space of the existing gardens. In March 2012 The SFC launched their 4th weekly farmers’ market. SFC Farmers’ Market East became the first market in Texas to offer the Double Dollar Incentive Program, enabling families and individuals on food assistance to access twice the amount of produce they would otherwise receive. SFC now offers the DDIP initiative at their Sunset Valley market on Saturdays as well.
SFC also began serving one third of all AISD campuses via our Sprouting Healthy Kids farm to school project, bringing locally grown food to area cafeterias. Several campuses also offer hands-on gardening and after-school cooking club offerings. SFC focuses on serving low-income communities first.

In terms of school food and waste, Texas Disposal Systems expanded the AISD elementary school composting service. All those kids are learning about how to compost from a young age!
In 2012, Urban Roots had its most productive year on the farm, 33 youth Farm Interns worked with 576 volunteers to harvest 41, 145 pounds of produce and donate 15,353 pounds to the community.
Barton Creek Farmers Market, formerly Sunset Valley Farmers Market, saw a massive increase in support this past year and expanded from being only Barton Creek Square Mall on Saturdays from 9:00am – 1:00pm to also having a market at Highland Mall on Sundays from 10:00am – 2:00pm.

MANY-time winner of the Best of Austin Awards for Best Food Company (and a few other categories) our partner Greenling had one kale of a year in Central Texas! They delivered 22,897 Local Boxes – that’s 200,000+ pounds of local produce. Greenling worked with 165 different local farms and food producers to bring the best local  and organic goodness to your doorstep!

We are also welcoming back one of our former partners Farmhouse Delivery. Their mission is to connect their farm members with the freshest produce from small local farms and food artisans.  Members enjoy weekly or bi-weekly bushels of local fruits and vegetables–delivered to their home or office–and have the option of ordering additional locally sourced food. Farmhouse Delivery sources its offerings from many farms, guaranteeing that each bushel contains a unique and varied assortment of the freshest local foods available.

Our beloved Edible Austin magazine (and amazing website) produced by the inimitable Marla Camp won Best Non-Chronicle publication in the Best of Austin awards. Yay! Edible Austin is proud to announce that their 2012 Eat Drink Local Week fundraiser raised over $55,000 for Sustainable Food center and Urban Roots. They (and we) are grateful for the continued support of the commmunity and sponsors for this annual celebration of local food.

On the food policy front we were happy to see Eddie Rodriguez launch the bipartisan Texas Farm-to-Table Food Caucus with a dinner at Boggy Creek Farm featuring local chefs. Best wishes to him and his colleagues for a productive session at the Lege.

WATER

The main news about water this year was the cost of it (and the lack of it). And to a degree, our ability to conserve it.

Local researcher/consumer watchdog Paul Robbins kept Austin Water Utility on its toes. Following his 2011 reports Read it and Leak as well as the top water users report, in 2012 he published Austin Water: Hard to Swallow and a followup to the top water users.

Late in the year it became clear that cost overruns for the construction of Water Treatment Plant 4 were looking imminent. One reader shared that his highlight of the year was when Council member Bill Spelman got Greg Meszaros to admit in front of Council that the environmentalists were right about the costs associated with WTP4 and Austin Water Utility was wrong.

Gloating won’t get boats floating though and we need to be working on more creative ways to conserve and reuse water. We made it through the summer, though many lawns and trees did not, with the on-again off-again water restrictions. The good news is that Austinites did curb their water usage and at that same above-mentioned meeting, Meszaros got to share that with the latest numbers in, progress has been made on water conservation.

Clean Water Action continued their fine work on water conservation. Canvass teams have been collectinng letters from their members to state legislators, with the goal of passing a long-term conservation plan in 2013. Another major focus is clean energy. Thanks in part to 4,000 postcards from CWA members, Austin Energy strengthened incentives for conservation in 2012 and now offers a premium rate to customers with roof-top solar. Canvass teams also collected over 450 letters to EPA in support of regulating the use of diesel in fracking operations, and they circulated a coalition letter to EPA calling for this, which 17 organizations across the state signed.
Clean Water Action endorsed several local pro-environment candidates in 2012 and worked to help re-elect Donna Howard to the state legislature and Mary Stone to the board of the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District. CWA also endorsed all seven of City of Austin bond initiatives. Six passed, including items to fund water conservation land, parks, trails, sidewalks and bikeways.    

Karen Kocher did a few screenings of segments of her interactive "Living Springs" Documentary that she is producing. She raised some money and still needs to raise more to bring this educational, historical and important work to the world. and s still a work in progress, and funds were raised this past year.

ZERO WASTE

In 2012 Austin started implementing the Austin Resource Recovery Master plan, passed in 2011, that calls for 90%+ diversion aka "zero waste" by 2030. The Zero Waste Alliance had many successes including passing the single-use bag ordinance passing (and officially goes into effect March 1st) and strng opposing the in-sink-erator company proposal to the city. Resource Recovery also announced their plans for a curbside composting pilot that kicked off the last week of 2012. 

Texas Disposal Systems has introduced integrated recycling and composting programs.  They now have successful programs at Dell Diamond, Whole Foods Austin, Four Seasons Austin and Austin Independent School District, as well as diverting recycling and compost at events like SXSW and ACL, to name a few.

PLANNING .

We are a city of plans…and actions. Much of this year seemed to involve a lot of planning effort for our fair City:

The biggest news was that after a couple years of public meetings and stakeholder engagement and many hours by a hard-working committee, the Austin City Council voted to approve the Imagine Austin comprehensive plan. I’ve been told this is the “new handbook of the City” and that all requests and new ideas should be tied to the priorities laid out in the plan. Useful to know for many of you activists out there. Summary flier

Watershed Protection has had numerous stakeholder meetings throughout the year to review and overhaul the current water ordinance manual that has been in place since 1986. The process is still ongoing but they are getting closer to submitting their revised ordinance.

The city is developing an urban forest master plan that aims to increase urban tree canopy, decrease the dreaded heat island effect and soil water loss from high temps and drought.

On the Austin EcoNetwork front, the end of the year is a chance to review some numbers, and we are pleased to share that our website and EcoNews readership are growing nicely. 

• In 2012, the AustinEcoNetwork.com website page views was up 31% compared to the previous year (139K vs 106K)
• Our unique visitors grew by 41% (111K vs 78K). The number of subscribers to the Austin EcoNews grew by 58% this year! (4488 ending vs 2849 starting)
• Our partnership program is getting streamlined and expanded and the number of groups saying YES to partnership is picking up rapidly.

Join us for more good work and fun in 2013!